“You have no idea...well, maybe you do. But yeah, we took a decent amount of fire.” I sigh and shake my head, breaking out of my reverie, suddenly panicked again about the plight of Danielle and Tom and Stella and James. “Which is another reason why I need to find my friends. I’ve only known them for a couple of weeks and they’ve already saved my life more than once. I owe them. I need to get to a boat.”
Abramowitz holds up a hand towards me, his palm out making a slow pressing motion. “Look professor, I’ll uphold my end of this deal if that is what you still want to do. We’re not far from the spot on the river where you left your friends. Near the bridge, right? So if you still want us to, Jones will drop you at a pier, you can rig a boat, and you can try to get out to them.”
“Good, because that is what I want.”
Abramowitz lets my words stand for a beat, staring into my eyes, searching for a deeper truth. He nods and says, “But I gotta tell you, and you said it yourself professor, they’ve been out there a long time. They either got that boat started or they didn’t. Which means they either got out of there or they were overrun. And you venturing out into the river now isn’t going to change that. It’ll be dark in forty-five minutes. You trying to make it to the middle of the river now is a death sentence.”
I look away, not ready to accept the logic of the soldier’s words. Finally, I say, “I have to know. Either way I have to know what happened. So maybe you’re right about getting out there tonight, but I at least need to get to the bank of the river and see if I can spot their boat from the shore.”
“You won’t be able to see anything in this light. You can barely see what’s on the river at noon, let alone now, at dusk.”
“Well what do you want me to do?” The words come out more forcefully than I intended, but my frustration and shame—shame at spending so much time in the Clam Bake, tending to my personal needs—is at a boiling point.
Abramowitz doesn’t answer, but I know his belief is that I should let them go. At least for the night. And he’s right, of course; by the time we reach a pier and find a viable boat with the keys inside—even if we get lucky and find it immediately—night time will be upon us. And with all the boats on the water, dark and impotent now that their masters have abandoned them, there’s a better-than-average chance that I’ll wreck the craft and drown in the freezing waters of the Maripo River.
Despite the anger I feel, however, mostly about my own ineptitude, the hope I feel for my friends is strong. They’re a formidable bunch. Tom spoke as if he was comfortable on the water—far more than I, it seemed—so I’m confident he got the boat started somehow. And if he needed time, there was Danielle, who would hold off the crabs until he succeeded. I have to believe that.
“Fine,” I say, filling in the answer to my rhetorical question. “We’ll wait until tomorrow.”
“It’ll be too late tomorrow,” Stanton pipes up.
“I need to know! You get that right? I just need to see if the boat is there or not. If it’s been overrun or not.”
“Okay, okay,” Stanton says, rising now and heading to the bathroom at the back of the RV, leaving me alone now on the bench seat by the window.
Abramowitz frowns and looks to the ground before facing me again. “Look professor, I’m sorry, all right, but this is—”
“Where are we going?” I interrupt.
“There’s a grocery store a couple of exits from here. It’s secure and well-stocked. We make a run about once a week and were due.”
I turn back toward the window and watch the landscape pass in a steady, seemingly endless, tableau of flat, empty ground. Only the occasional road sign appears sporadically, displaying the speed limit or the miles remaining to reach the next town.
And then, as if a giant blimp had suddenly been thrust from beneath the ground, the empty landscape becomes blanketed by a screen of white. I sit up straight now and take in the enormity of the cloud-white structure, a building which sits just off the interstate and stretches on for what seems like miles. I narrow my eyes and touch the tip of my nose against the glass, examining the structure like an architect. I’ve probably passed the building a hundred times, but something about it rivets me now, and I’m only really seeing it consciously for the first time.
The building is tall and curved like the shape of an airplane hangar, except it’s so massive it’s like several hangars that have been lined up side by side, forming an arched white tube that appears large enough to house a small village. I can’t believe I’ve never given the construction a second glance, but it’s so benign in terms of color and design, forming a steady border along the interstate, that it almost blends in with the horizon on either side of it.
The RV finally reaches what I believe is the front end of the structure and I turn my neck backwards, following it with my eyes as we pass, focusing now on the facade of the tube-shaped building.
And then I see the letters.
Painted in huge, faded blue script across the end face of the structure are the letters D&W.
D&W.
At first the writing has no effect on me, but my mind unconsciously takes in the blandly written print, and I look to the floor of the RV, my brain noting a grain of recognition that it wants me to locate.
“There are a couple of waterfront homes right at the base of the bridge,” Abramowitz says, calling from the front of the RV and shaking me from my trance. “They all have boats. We’ll get there early tomorrow and try to find one.”
And then it comes to me. “Wait!” I yell. “Take this exit.”
“The supermarket is off the next exit?” Jones says from the driver’s seat; they’re the first words he’s said since we started driving.
“Did you see something, professor?” Abramowitz asks.
“Just get off here. Please. If I can’t save my friends today, maybe I can get us some answers to what really happened here. Maybe find out who’s responsible for it.”
Chapter 6
The RV pulls into the lot of D&W and I see instantly that what looks like a giant abandoned warehouse from the road is actually a functioning business. Or at least it was at one time, likely right up until the world came to a stop.
At the end of the caterpillar-shaped tube is a well-designed entrance with blonde wood paneling and windows that rise up about halfway to the roof where they join with a second story front-facing patio. It’s quite gorgeous, actually, the design of someone with unlimited funds. It’s a building you would find on the cover of an architecture magazine, though this whole section of the building is completely hidden from the interstate, a secluded gem in plain sight.
“What the hell is ‘D&W,’” Smalley asks. “Sounds like some kind of root beer or something.”
“That’s A&W,” Stanton replies.
“I just said it sounded like it.”
Abramowitz stares at his two subordinates for a moment and then asks, “Are you two almost done?”
They both shrug and nod, and the four of us—Abramowitz, Smalley, Stanton and I—follow Jones, who is already standing at the base of the structure, staring up toward the roof. “How tall do you think this thing is?” he asks. “Seventy-five feet? A hundred?”
“It’s damn tall,” Abramowitz replies. “Could definitely fit a 747 under this thing. Can you imagine how much it cost to build?”
“No way this is some giant hangar though,” Stanton says. “There’s no airport or airbase anywhere close to here.”
“Maybe they build planes inside,” Smalley suggests. “You know, and then ship them off to somewhere else when they’re complete.”
“That could be,” Stanton concedes.
I stare at the Smalley and Stanton for a long beat, disbelieving, making sure they’re serious about the possibility they’ve just constructed before offering the rebuttal. Finally, I say, “You two obviously are not from this area. Airplane factory? Are you kidding me? If this was an airplane factory it would be the biggest employer in five counties. M
aybe the whole state. I pass this building all the time and never give it two looks—I think that’s how the designers intended it. But I know it’s no airplane factory.”
“So why are you looking now?” Abramowitz asks.
“What’s that?”
“You said you never noticed this place. Why do you notice it now?”
I nod up towards the top of the building at the blue letters that hover above us. “D&W.”
“What about it?”
“The letters were faintly written on the side of the building. I saw them from the interstate.
“So?”
“It’s the name of the company where those scientists I was telling you about worked. The ones who were sent out to my college, ostensibly to observe the aftermath of the event.”
“I thought you said they worked for the colonel,” Jones says. “What do they have to do with this place?”
“No, I didn’t say ‘they’ worked for anyone. I told you it was only the guy who was working with the colonel. The other one, the woman, she wasn’t involved with him. At least I don’t think so, though I think she might know more than she’s admitting.”
“Were you sleeping with her too?” Smalley asks.
I stare Smalley down and then say flatly, “No. And the truth is I could be wrong about all of it. I don’t really know what’s going on beyond the confessions of the scientists and what I overheard on the exit ramp. Except for this place. Stella mentioned the name of her company several times, and though she didn’t know the full extent to which they were involved, they were definitely involved in the blast. I’m going to assume that much is true.”
There are a couple beats of silence and then Abramowitz says, “Or maybe it’s not.”
I shake my head, confused. “Why not?”
“Maybe it was the colonel and his group who were behind the blast—who else would have the capability of firing off a rocket in the middle of an American county? But maybe it was this place that was behind the results.”
“The results? What does that mean?”
“It means, that maybe these are the people that created...I don’t know...the stuff that turned people into ghosts.”
The soldier’s words send a chill down my spine, a chill that feels familiar in my bones, familiar like the truth. Of course. It makes perfect sense. It was some shadowy military force that created the missile or bomb or rocket or whatever it was that detonated over the skies of Warren College that day, but it was D&W that made the chemical that turned the world white. A chemical company. That sounds right.
I walk up close to the large glass door of the warehouse and stare inside, but there is only a white wall staring back at me. A hallway leads to the right, presumably to the lobby of the mysterious building. “Yeah, maybe.”
“So what do you want to do, professor?” Abramowitz asks. “Seems like a big task to go exploring a hundred-thousand square feet today. It’s a good find though. Important even, I’m sure. But it’s gonna be dark soon and, as domesticated as it sounds, I would like to get my grocery shopping done before it does. We can leave this for tomorrow. That and finding your friends.”
I stare a few seconds longer into the building and then turn back to the group. “Sounds like a plan.”
Chapter 7
Night has fallen more quickly than Abramowitz estimated, and were now staring at the facade of Gray’s Grocery and Tackle where, beneath the faded signs advertising the weekly discounts on meats and canned goods, blackness awaits us inside.
In the beginning, for the first couple of months after the blast, the snow had always acted as an illuminating agent, a white coating of reflection that guiding the way like a lighthouse through our new world, a world which, other than that supplied by the occasional backup generator, contains no electricity.
But the snow has barely fallen in weeks, and the days have begun to grow warmer. Ever since the morning Naia and I made our escape from the student union, when the sun appeared for the first time in weeks and I’d agreed to leave, the temperatures have steadily risen. And now the blankets of snow, like that which covers the parking lot of Gray’s Grocery and Tackle, have begun to melt, leaving a dark void where bright whiteness existed previously. My eyes work to adjust to this new lack of light.
I stand still in front of the store, noting the lack of snow or ice at my feet, feeling the tacky pavement beneath my boots. I depress the rubber button of my flashlight and unleash a strong beam forward. I’m in the back of the group, and my beam joins that of Abramowitz’s who has cast his toward the front entrance.
“Turn that off,” Abramowitz snaps. “There’s enough light with mine. We don’t need to advertise.”
“Sorry,” I whisper. “What’s the crab count around here?”
Abramowitz shrugs. “We haven’t’ seen any of them at this particular store, probably because like the restaurant, there was an open door in the back when we found this place, so my guess is anyone inside eventually found their way out. But there’s no need to bring extra attention to ourselves. Just in case.”
I scan the other four in my group and note the lack of weaponry. “Guns might be a good idea, right?”
I notice Smalley first, not her face, but the nervous way she looks back and forth between Jones and Abramowitz. Something is wrong.
Abramowitz sighs. “We’re out of ammo.”
“What?”
“For about three days now.”
“Out of ammo? But every one of you put guns on me back at the restaurant. What was that about?”
“Habit mostly. But also just a show. That’s the thing about guns, professor. You usually just need to show them and people do what they’re told. Works on humans pretty good. Not so much on those white sons of bitches.”
“But you could find more weapons and ammo inside this cordon, right? I know it’s not a big gun-owning community, but I’ve seen my share of weapons since this happened.”
“Weapons yes. That’s part of the reason we were out when we found you at that seafood joint. We were making a weapons run. But guns are getting harder and harder to come by. And we ain’t gonna find ammo for those M-16s. Spent those rounds up quickly in the beginning. When they first came with the snow. Bullets don’t last long. That’s something you never see in movies.”
“Well that might be a good first task tomorrow,” I say, a tinge of sarcasm in my voice. “Not sure I want to go inside that warehouse with a penknife and a bunch of empty rifles.”
“I’ll put it on the list.”
“Maybe we could finish this conversation inside,” Jones says, surveying the parking lot. I can tell the lack of weaponry has him unnerved, and he feels naked in the darkness.
“After you, soldier,” Abramowitz says, and we walk quickly to the front of the market, staying close to one another, trying to form a tight ball against the exposed night around us. Abramowitz pushes his chest against the glass entrance and wedges his fingers between the two sliding doors. He pulls them apart with little effort, and after we all step inside, he closes it back, pressing the edges together, making sure the rubber seals suck tight.
The grocery store is quite large, enormous, in fact, despite the folksy-sounding ‘Grocery and Tackle’ in its moniker. Even in the darkness, it’s easy to see that the store was renovated, turned from a local market into something resembling a super-mart, hoping to compete, no doubt, with the encroaching national retailers while still retaining its hometown name.
The first item that catches my eye is a tall cardboard tower, placed conspicuously inside the front door, where inside its hollow trunk is a bevy of silver and red snow shovels, blades sticking up over the lip of the box like baby birds waiting for their feeding. Well that sure didn’t take long, I think to myself. Snow shovels in May? Who would even have those in stock? They probably had leftovers from the previous winter—a winter that was virtually snowless—and then figured they’d seize on the opportunity to unload them once the snow started to fall. What luck!
But hey, how can you blame them? They couldn’t have known what was coming. And if it had turned out to be just some freak, off-season snowfall, people would have needed a way to dig out. And Gray’s would have been providing a much needed service.
Absently, I pick up one of the shovels in stride and carry it at my side like a staff, liking the weight of the thing in my hands, gripping the thick handle until I feel the burn in my knuckles.
The five of us enter the aisle furthest to our right—the produce department—and from what Abramowitz’s flashlight displays, there isn’t a single fruit or vegetable to be found.
He catches my gaze and says, “Most of it was spoiled by the time we found this place. Even with the temperatures what they were.” He turns back and takes a wide scan of the store. “And speaking of things we should have waited until tomorrow to do...damn this place is dark at night.”
“Told you this was not a good plan,” Jones says, and then begins walking deliberately toward the seafood counter at the back of the store. He’s out of range before Abramowitz can retort.
“Let’s just get to the freezer and grab a couple of steaks,” Smalley says, easing the light tension. “We’ve still got plenty of propane to get the grill going, so that’s all we’ll need to get us through the night. Tomorrow we can come back and do a more thorough shopping. Right after we check out that creepy hangar.”
“Don’t forget the guns,” I remind her.
Abramowitz, Smalley, Stanton and I walk in the direction of Jones, who is now out of sight, navigating past the raised displays where everything from bananas and apples to cucumbers and kumquats were showcased not so long ago.
I bang my knee into a display case, one that is not symmetrical with the other platforms and seems ill-situated within the aisle. I stop to tend to the injury, gritting my teeth and holding back a four-letter word.
I look up to see that Smalley, Stanton and Abramowitz have now fanned out in the wide aisle and have reached the back of the store, and I limp forward in an attempt to catch up.
They Came With The Snow Box Set {Books 1-2] Page 14
